


Petty-Klok

by GothicPrep3000



Category: Metalocalypse (Cartoon)
Genre: Character Motivations, Drunken Mistakes, Internal Conflict, Pettiness, Sabotage, Strife - Freeform, things that happen in cannon explained a little more
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:00:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22840639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GothicPrep3000/pseuds/GothicPrep3000
Summary: Just explaining instances of pettiness between the bandmates.  It can't all be over the top tantrums.
Relationships: Nathan Explosion/Pickles the Drummer
Kudos: 7





	1. Intro

Five angry stupid men. Shackled together by destiny. Forced to live and work together constantly. Good thing they mostly get along…mostly. The boys all like to get drunk together and hang out anyway. Whenever one strays a bit to do his own thing…well, the rest follow. To be supportive. And because it’s what everyone else is doing. Yeah that’s it. Definitely not because they actually like being together. Not because they actually miss each other that much when they are separated. It’s just they function best as a unit and they need to look out for each other. Music is a tough business! And really, watching your bandmates’ back is the same as watching ones own back…what happens to one affects the rest. It’s the same reason they try to make most of their decisions as a group (to varying degrees of success.) Ok so they don’t always make the best decisions as a group. Dieting was a bust, so was trying to get back to their roots, and let’s not even get into the whole…sucking their own..you-know-what thing.

But there are times when one member strays from the unit just ever so slightly, and it causes ripples. Its not something these guys would find it worth to actually talk about. But somebody maybe does something that bothers somebody else, just a little. Or maybe a lot. And that’s when the pettiness comes out.


	2. Pickles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pickles thinks of a way to feel better about all those deleted tracks.

Nathan had done it. Again. Deleted all the tracks. A few of them were songs Pickles had taken a personal interest in, isolating himself with the tracks and drumming along in the studio by himself late into the night to come up with the perfect rhythm. At least two, he was convinced, were perfect. And just like that, they were gone. Almost a year of hard work from all of them. Nathan couldn’t keep getting away with it. But then he did. He insisted they all pile into that horrible cramped submarine for months on end, and just when Pickles was certain they were all about to go insane if they weren’t already, they emerged from the depths with a perfect multi-platinum record. The record was so good Pickles almost resented it. How? How could Nathan have been right about this? And even if he didn’t want to release the earlier songs, why couldn’t he let Pickles keep the tracks, if only for his own personal collection? Something to keep tinkering around with? But no. No Nathan deleted all their efforts and forced them to start over without a second thought, and Pickles felt he wasn’t even allowed to be mad about that, because it still all worked out for the best. Bastard.   
So when Nathan got a huge Shakespearian book on tape deal and asked Pickles to help, Pickles got a wicked idea. An idea he almost didn’t want to...no he couldn’t acknowledge it to himself in sound mind and clear conscious. Good thing he had a good buzz going. “Yeah sure I’ll help you!” He answered easily. No, it didn’t occur to him to sabotage the whole thing…not consciously. And if it did, he would never admit it, even to himself. His sweet revenge would exist in the liminal space of a hazy night of binge drinking, like all the sweetest things in his luxurious life. ‘yeah I’ll help. Heh. But I will be drunk the whole time and not pay much attention to whatever we’re doing. I mean, its his deal, I really don’t owe that fatso anymore than that…’ he drunkenly reasoned. ‘…and it’ll turn out however it turns out!’ He stumbled to the studio with Nathan early Saturday night. He had had a few bloody marys and mimosas for breakfast, a few fruity drinks and some wine at lunch, and then it was happy hour so he had been crushing beer after beer interspersed with some shots here and there, right up until it was time to head into the studio.   
“all right they’re paying me a lot of money and I don’t want to give it to like a dumb engineer I want to keep all of it so we’re just gonna do this ourselves and I wanna do it all in one take cool?” Nathan quickly rambled, already eager to have the thing finished.   
“yeah it all looks fine out here, lights are blinking..” Pickles slurred. ‘Greedy asshole didn’t bother to even offer me a cut of whatever this is…’ he thought to himself.   
And then Nathan started reading. And reading and reading and it sounded so, so stupid. The poor dumb high school dropout obviously had no idea what any of it meant which made the whole thing sound even stupider.   
Pickles, for his part, just decided to lean back and watch the train wreck from the booth. He could have glanced down at the board once or twice to check the levels, but he didn’t.  
‘Would you listen to this embarrassing shit? I’m doing him a favor by not…by not aaah…what am I supposed to be doing here?’  
His thoughts trailed off. Deep down he knew damn well that he, intentionally, wasn’t recording any of it. But that wasn’t his problem right now. How could it be? He was almost falling over, he was so drunk. And Nathan should know better than to ask him when he’s drunk….   
Then Pickles felt a wave of shitty guilt. Here was his bandmate, trusting him, putting confidence in his ability. It was flattering that his band and their manager tended to trust him to have the best judgement, even under the influence! And here was Pickles, betraying Nathan by acting more drunk and stupid than he really was or ever could be. And he was going to look so stupid later. What does it say about him that he can’t even press a simple button?  
‘nothin’. He answered himself belligerently. ‘It doesn’t say nothin’ about me. It just means that NATHAN should be more careful with recordings. There.’   
Pickles zoned out for the next few hours. In the early hours of the AM he jolted up, awake, suddenly more lucid and with a lot less rageful rumination in his internal monologue. He remembered where he was, but what was he doing? Oh right, Nathan’s book on tape deal.   
“hey Nathan? Yer gonna kill me but I totally forgot to press record. But here’s the good news…I’m sorry.” He felt himself relish that last part as he said it. Even in his shitty pettiness he could apologize, he thought to himself. Nathan couldn’t even do that. The fact that he could apologize, and Nathan couldn’t, made him the better man. And the proof of that made his whole petty scheme worth it. Even if Pickles wasn’t really sorry.


End file.
